American government stands on three legs -- the executive, the legislature and the judiciary -- acting under the Constitution. When, as is the case today, two of these, the executive and the legislature, are in the hands of one political party, the role of the judiciary becomes even more critical in keeping the other two in line.

Two U.S. appeals courts ruled last Thursday to tell the executive branch, specifically the Department of Justice headed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, that it is acting unconstitutionally.

In one of the cases, American citizen Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago 19 months ago, declared by Justice to be an "enemy combatant," and on that basis locked up in a U.S. Navy prison in South Carolina, and denied access to a lawyer and all other rights of due process accorded by the Constitution.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting in New York, ruled that President Bush did not have the authority to detain Mr. Padilla indefinitely by declaring him an "enemy combatant," and ordered his release within 30 days.

In another case, the Bush administration, in pursuit of the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, captured 660 prisoners, some of them non-Afghans, including British and Australians, and imprisoned them at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. American authorities have kept most of them in a camp there, again without access to lawyers or other elements of due process.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting in San Francisco, ruled that this practice is both unconstitutional and a violation of international law. The Ninth Circuit Court's ruling is in conflict with a previous judgment on the subject by another federal appeals court.

The actions that the courts addressed in both cases were taken by the U.S. government in pursuit of the war on terrorism. The legal rights of the accused were disregarded by the executive branch to see what information could be obtained from the prisoners over time and, we suppose, to keep them out of general circulation. So-called preventive detention is condemned universally as a gross violation of human rights.

It's hard to say, post-9/11, that the government's rationale was totally unjustified. It is also a fact that many of those held were not exactly lovable.

But that isn't the point. The point is that the United States is a country governed by laws, under the Constitution. That characteristic distinguishes the United States from many other countries in the world. It is a system that Americans fight and sometimes die to preserve. Without it, the United States is North Korea or Zimbabwe in terms of justice and human rights.

The two federal appeals courts were correct in rendering their decisions. But the White House said President Bush has ordered the Justice Department to appeal both cases to the Supreme Court. We recommend strongly that the executive branch not pursue the reversal of these two important rulings. The Bush administration must respect the proper functioning of American justice consistent with the Constitution.